According to singer Chloe Lum, the name "AIDS Wolf" comes from an urban legend wherein wolves carry AIDS and pass it to house pets who then pass it on to people:

"We didn’t come up with AIDS Wolf as a concept. The idea has been floating around in the public psyche for a while. In urban legend, wolves transmit AIDS instead of rabies; in depressing college towns, street gangs spray-paint ‘AIDS Wolf’ on the side of buildings."[6]

The band has given other answers to similar questions, however:

"My partner and I were on a road trip in Ohio, and it just came to us. It was a universal message. It's a combination of our spirit peers in An Albatross (animal) and The Sick Lipstick (R.I.P.) (illness). It fits, because we're a little bit no–wave and a little bit hardcore, like each of those bands. It's also a message that we as humans must take care for our animal siblings as their health is a barometer of our own survival."[7]

^Lepage, Mark (February 11, 2010). "In the groove of maturity: Montreal's music scene has moved past its indie-heaven days of the mid-'00s to a better-produced one with a varied strata of acts and venues for all of them", The Gazette, p. C1.